The replacement heating element for the dryer arrived in the mail this morning. I swapped it out with the old one & put the dryer back together. Miraculously [so far] it’s working!!!

For the past week the dryer has been dead. We cleared out the lint but it still didn’t work. We checked the manual which suggested we test the thermistor, the high limit thermostat, the regular thermostat, the cycling thermostat, & the heating coil. Um, what??? We attempted to set up a service call but the tech never showed. That’s when I decided to take matters into my own hands!

Last Friday our dryer stopped heating. Hubby [who’s in charge of laundry] had to bring a dryer full of damp clothes up the street to the laundromat. Our first thought was maybe the lint had clogged up the vents. I climbed behind the dryer and detached the vent from both the back of the dryer and from the wall. But when I looked in, it was empty except for a few tiny clumps which I removed with my fingers.

On our 5th and last full day in Germany, Joachim & Daniela picked us up at our hotel with fresh coffee, tea, and warm, Swabian pretzels [so good!]. We headed southeast to Bavaria. I wasn’t sure whether Bavaria was a different country or part of Germany, and I didn’t want…

On our 4th day in Germany, we drove to see the Triberg Waterfalls which are one of the highest waterfalls in Germany. Triberg is in the Black Forest and is famous for it’s handmade cuckoo clocks. I would have loved to buy one but they were super expensive. We also toured Castle Sigmaringen on the Danube River, which was spectacular!

OMG we did SO MUCH on our 3rd day in Germany!!! I narrowed down my photos for this day and still had 125! I worked really hard to narrow them down even further to a more reasonable 40 50. We started the day in Nürtingen, then had lunch with our extended German family, then toured Castle Hohenneuffen again, and also an open-air museum.

Our 2nd day in Germany began when my German sister & brother-in-law picked us up at 9am with a carafe of fresh coffee for Jim, a carafe of fresh tea for me, and a crinkly bag of things from the bakery – YUM! They did this every morning which was fantastically amazing and SO nice! We spent the day visiting 2 amazing castles – Burg Hohenzollern & Schloss Lichtenstein.

Hubby and I traveled to the Stuttgart area of Germany from 9/30-10/5. We left home 9/29 but didn’t arrive in Germany until the morning of 9/30, which gave us 5 solid days to visit my German sister Daniela & her husband Joachim. They came to visit us this past May and it was amazing to visit them and see the amazing country they live in. I’ve never been to Germany before, and look forward to going back!

We were in Germany for a week [from 9/30-10/5], which was AWESOME. I have 805 photos to go through, and so many memories to record. But the day before we flew home I woke up with a sore throat. That was last Tuesday. I’m still sick. Or at least suffering through the residuals. Now hubby is sick, too. The joys of plane travel. Flying petri dish. But our trip was amazing.

NINE DARK MOONS

I am ALISON, aka Nine Dark Moons. Welcome to my little corner of the world! I hope you will stay a while & read some stories about my DIY projects, my creative exploits, and the adorable animals that cross my path.